


Fire-Eyed Fury

by NevillesGran



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: An Artificial Night but (mostly) MDZS Characters, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Book 3: An Artificial Night, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, bullet point fic, character tags are for people who appear in more than one chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29973384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: “Blind Michael!” Jin Zixun cries. “We left them out for Blind Michael. I made a deal.” He lifts his chin like it’s something to be proud of. “To protect the children of Sparks Amid Snow, and of the royal lands.”“Blind Michael takes children,” Wei Wuxian says through the rising uproar. “Wen Ning is of age.”Jin Zixun shrugs. “He refused to leave the brats, so we left him with the rest, and clearly the offer was accepted.”
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure, this fic isn't going to make the most sense if you haven't read both MDZS (or some variant thereof) _and_ the October Daye series. Might be fun anyway, though. And if you haven't read both, but you're (clearly) fond of determinator protagonists who upset social order everywhere they go, have been presumed dead for 13 years at the start of canon, raise the dead, and reflexively adopt every teenager they meet, boy do I have a rec for you!
> 
> Fic contains implicit spoilers through The Unkindest Tide, though not severely.
> 
>  _Alive in triumph—and Mercutio slain!  
>  Away to heaven, respective lenity,  
> And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now._  
> – Romeo and Juliet, Act III Scene I

  * The Duchy of Lotus Lakes consists mostly of a bunch of very huge, deep lakes and some of the surrounding land—basically the Great Lakes, but at a warmer latitude _._ The Merrow rule from underwater (the Jiang family, for the last couple centuries), but the duchy includes a few floating settlements (in the Summerlands) and a few small mostly-human towns on the shores, the largest of which is called Lotus Pier. The merrows’ collective attitude towards the inhabitants of these, faerie and human alike, is roughly, “they’re shitty landdwellers by they’re OUR shitty landdwellers.”
  * Wei Wuxian is wandering Lotus Pier when Wen Qing finds him. One might expect him to be in the knowe beneath the waters, considering he’s the duke’s right-hand knight, but Wen Qing is one of the few people who knows why he’s not 
    * (In this case, he was actually on land on legitimate purposes, investigating the disappearance of a changeling child from her bed. We’ll get to that soon.)
  * [Travel time] later, Wei Wuxian stalks into the royal knowe. Once called the Sun Palace and occupied by Daoine Sidhe, now called Glamour Hall and…occupied by Daoine Sidhe. At this moment, King Jin Guangshan is holding a party, as kings—especially this one—are wont to do. 
    * There are as many nobles present as you could dream of. Jins in gold with their panoply of peony-scented magics. The Lan brothers, nearly identical ice and gentians. The Nies, oak and stony earth and oak and roses, respectively. (As many land nobles, that is—absent are any lotus-and-seawater Jiangs.)
    * Jin Zixun is the Duke of Sparks Amid Snow, awarded the duchy “in recognition of his valor in battle” when the main Jin line moved into the Glamour Hall with the crown. He’s…”respected” is generous, but “powerful” is unfortunately undeniable, especially in a hall where his uncle the king is literally holding court
    * Wei Wuxian all but slams him against a wall (after casually downing Lan Wangji’s wine, of course). He demands: “Where’s Wen Qionglin?” 
      * “Who?”
      * “Wen Qionglin. Wen Ning. He’s supposed to be one of your prisoners, but now he’s missing—along with, I hear, two dozen children, changeling and pureblood alike.” He taps idle fingers on the shaft of the war trident carried over one shoulder. “You have three seconds to answer.”
      * “What?!”
      * “Wei Wuxian!”
      * “Two.” 
        * There are hands drifting toward weapons throughout the hall, and hands carefully held back from weapons. There is wary eye contact and the rising scent of blood, and it might be Wei Wuxian’s magic and it might be the onlookers’ battlefield memories
        * Because here’s the story: this world is an inverse of [MDZS] canon: Wei Wuxian (not yet called the Yiling Patriarch, not quite yet) doesn’t raise the dead.* This Wei Wuxian _doesn’t die_.
        * It’s theoretically possible. The general consensus among those who fought in the Sunshot Campaign was this: if you beheaded him in one clean stroke, that would probably, _probably_ be the end of it.
        * But it would need to be one stroke and it would need to be as fast as light itself, because those who fought in the Sunshot Campaign have seen him take a sword through the heart, pull it out with a laugh, and slit the throat of the knight who’d thrust it. They’ve seen him scream in pain when hit with elfshot, then yank the arrow out and keep going. They’ve watched Wei Wuxian tear through entire battlefields with the ferocity and skill of the best Merrow warrior in a generation and the insouciant invulnerability of something none of them understand, and leave none but himself standing. 
          * Oh, and the trident is definitely tipped with iron. 
      * “O—”
      * “Blind Michael!” Jin Zixun cries. “We left them out for Blind Michael. I made a deal.” He lifts his chin like it’s something to be proud of. “To protect the children of Sparks Amid Snow, and of the royal lands.”
      * “Blind Michael takes children,” Wei Wuxian says through the rising uproar. “Wen Ning is of age.”
      * Jin Zixun shrugs. “He refused to leave the brats, so we left him with the rest, and clearly the offer was accepted.” 
    * “No,” Wen Qing whispers brokenly when Wei Wuxian tells her. And then, with a shuddering breath, “Okay. It was good of you to find out.” (Because _thank you_ is not a thing she will burden him with. Because she will not recover from this, she knows she will not, but she’s lost to much not to know that she’ll go on anyway. Somehow.)
    * “No,” Wei Wuxian says firmly. “I said I’d find him, and I will. C’mon—I have an idea, but we have to go back to Lotus Lakes.”



* Not yet, at least. But I wouldn't rule it out.


	2. Chapter 2

  * I posit here that one time, the whole Jiang family visited the Duchy of Ships for some sort of trade negotiations. I don’t think a lot of the Undersea can grow lotus like they do. For the record, Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Cheng are fainters, and Yu Ziyuan, Jiang Yanli, and Wei Wuxian are Attack Their Firstborn On Sight-ers (though WWX was pretty half-hearted—he was never, after all, wholly Merrow). None of them remembered such details afterward, though Wei Wuxian might’ve later, because he did go back at least once during the Sunshot Campaign—he ran around just about everywhere, making alliances and having adventures and slaughtering Wens.
  * Wen Qing isn’t any sort of Merrow, but she is the best Daoine Sidhe bloodworker in her generation. So they return to Lotus Lakes, borrow a cup or two of blood from whoever’s willing, transform, and swim down down down to the gate that anchors this spoke of the Undersea to its center, and up up up again to crawl up some nets into the Duchy of Ships 
    * It’s not any sort of state visit. But Wei Wuxian introduces himself and they get passed to someone with more authority, who passes them to someone with more authority, who passes them to a First Mate who takes them to…I like to think Pete is somewhere random doing something nautical. Coiling rope. I don’t know.
    * “Captain,” says the First Mate, “Wei Wuxian here to ask for an audience, with Wen Qing, formerly of the Kingdom of Golden Flame.”  

      * Wei Wuxian bows with a grin. “Great-great—”
      * “If you keep going and end with ‘grandma’, I’m throwing you back in the water,” Captain Pete warns. She takes a sniff with a snark’s nose. “And calling you a liar.”
      * “—aunt,” Wei Wuxian finishes smoothly. (The first way would’ve worked the last time he was here, but then he had to deal with the elfshot.) “This one is sorry to interrupt your day, but I have a favor to ask of you, or at least some advice.” 
        * Wen Qing stays silent, and tries not to have hope. Wei Wuxian has the air of a man fixing to earn the title of Hero or die in the pursuit (then again, he always has) (then again, that’s how all Heroes are).
        * “Come to my cabin,” says the Captain. “We’ll talk over tea.”
      * A little explanation later, she says, “I’m not the Luidaeg, you know. I’m not the one who starts Heroes on their quests with a terrible favor and worse price.” 
        * “I know,” says Wei Wuxian. “But you’re less scary, or at least I’m pretty sure you like me more, and she moved to California. We’re kind of on a time crunch.”
      * A little more wheedling after that, Amphitrite gets a compass out of a box in her bureau and presses it into his hand. “This will take you where you need to go, by land or sea. Just focus on your destination— _really_ focus—and it’ll point the way.” She closes his hand around it. “Don’t lose it, and do bring it back to me. Or there will be a reckoning.” 
        * “I’ll pay anything he can’t, Lady,” says Wen Qing. “Favors and all.” Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to protest and she cuts him off with a Look.
        * “The compass will only take one,” the Captain warns.
        * “That’s fine,” says Wen Qing, though she doesn’t mean it. “I’m a healer, not a hero.”
        * “Fine,” says Amphitrite. She plucks a candle off her desk. “Now, don’t drop this, either.” 
  * Do we need to dwell on how far he walks by candlelight, to what feels like Babylon and back? Do we need to describe in detail the night without stars and the land without life, save for the gnarled forest starving for light and the riders that sweep now and again across the barren land, striking out and returning to Blind Michael’s terrible hall? The children huddled and weeping, Merrow and Daoine Sidhe and Cait Sidhe and Hob and more, pureblood and mixed and changeling, eyeing with terror the riders who were once like them and now are monstrous? And that doesn’t even get into nightmarish stables, where stolen human children are left to die or to warp into loyal mounts, worthy only to be ridden, not ride.
  * Here are the key snapshots: 
    * Acacia’s magic smells familiar, ancient and exhausted though it is. This chekov’s gun will fire fairly soon.
    * Jin Zixun didn’t lie; Wen Ning is here because he refused to leave the children he’d been left in charge of, even when the Jins came to round them up and stake them out in the dark. After that, he didn’t have a choice, because in general Blind Michael only takes children, but in this case he simply took all those he’d been offered 
      * (And Wen Ning isn’t that much more than a child himself, only… _*squints at Tobyverse faerie aging*_ I refuse to think this through. They’re all in their 20s or emotional equivalent thereof, no matter what.)
    * Wei Wuxian gets all the kids out, all those who were just taken last night from Lotus Lakes and Cloud Recesses and Butchers’ Hill and the unwanted prisoners of Sparks Amid Snow…but not their self-determined guardian
    * He sets down the child he’s carrying, an ember-haired Daoine Sidhe boy with his thumb in his mouth, and looks Wen Qing in the eyes and says, “I’m not done.”



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why Amphitrite rather than the Luidaeg? Well,  
> 1\. We've already seen the Luidaeg in this story, and repetition is dull.  
> 2\. Wei Wuxian's particular brand of informality and knows-he's badass/lethal-and-chooses-to-be-silly/laid back fits in SO WELL in the Duchy of Ships, and I just want him to be welcome there.  
> 3\. In the immortal words of Marge Simpson, "I just think [she's] neat."


	3. Chapter 3

  * Right here is probably where you get your obligatory “Wild Hunt follows our hero back to the human realm, forcing them to go on a high-stakes, high-speed chase with their romantic interest as their (fantasy, car-free) driver.” Tylweth Tyg Lan Wangji, flying yarrow stalk, clinging tightly to one another because of the "speed" and "high-altitude cold", natch.
  * Their goal is the Duchy of Butchers’ Hill. They probably crash-land in a courtyard. 
    * Quick history of Butchers’ Hill: There once was a merlin so lowly that she had a job in the human world as a butcher, before she saved a monarch’s life and so earned the use of a Hope Chest and, through further service, a duchy. In the face of lingering scorn, she named her new demesne after her mortal career, because fuck you
    * The current duke, Nie Mingjue, is Tuatha de Danaan through and through, child of happily divorced parents—well, one’s dead, now—because it was an amiable political marriage and his mother had a barony to inherit on a different continent.
    * However his brother and heir, Nie Huaisang, had a Daoine Sidhe mother (everyone knows, though she has little more family history than that she wandered into Butchers' Hill one day and left a few years later via the cessation of her dancing). He has fine Tuatha features, but his hair is the dark dark red of a cursed rose, his eyes are yellow rather than copper, his magic is scented of roses as well as Nie oak. He’s never been able to open a portal. His mother was sickly, they say, and something went wrong in the childbirth; she recovered, but not for long.
  * Their goal today is not the duke but that selfsame younger brother. “Wei- _xiong_!” Nie Huaisang says cheerfully, with the air of someone who’s about to get some ~gossip~. “And Lan- _er-gongzi!_ It’s good to see you! You look like you need a drink.” 
    * Lan Wangji accepts tea; Wei Wuxian accepts wine, and takes a deep sniff—not of the vintage. He cuts through the burgeoning small talk: “Nie- _xiong_ , your mother wasn’t a Daoine Sidhe.” 
      *         * (There's good Tuatha Nie oak in it, but his rosy magic still smells like his grandmother’s.)
    * “…No,” Nie Huaisang says, after a particularly long sip of wine. “She wasn’t.” He leans forward, because if they’re doing _real_ gossip, then they’re doing _real_ gossip. “Neither was yours, right?”
    * “Ah, busted,” Wei Wuxian says with a shameless grin. “So, can you open a Rose Road?" 
      * _[Hold up,_ the astute reader might ask at this juncture. _How does he know about that? Did Captain Pete tell him? For that matter, he knew his exact relation to her—Toby didn’t know this stuff, circa her own fight with Blind Michael! What gives?_
      * _Well, here’s the story…]_
        * Wei Wuxian is already feeling pretty shit, wandering the streets of Yiling with magic overuse ache like he’s been run over by a tractor. Needless to say this is the _only_ reason Wen Chao gets the jump on him.
        * The Burial Mounds is an abandoned iron mine. Wen Chao shoots him, first, too, with, like, a gattling gun full of shards of iron [please don’t ask about the technology level of this setting]. Anyway, it’s an obvious death sentence. A cruel, slow death sentence, iron poisoning with a fun side dose of broken limbs from being dropped down a mineshaft. Wen Chao laughs and leaves; Wei Wuxian lies here in agony and waits to die.
        * Except…he doesn’t.
        * And then he continues to not.
        * Or maybe he does, or comes as close as makes no difference, and wakes up again anyway?
        * The first time that happens, the Night Haunts arrive. expectantly. There’s only room for a couple of them, and they won’t stay long because of all the iron, but they do their duty; they come for the body.
        * But the body is still living.
        * Hallucinating, a little.
        * He definitely assumes the night haunts are a hallucination, at first.
        * He starts talking to them, and eventually, they talk back (maybe one who wears the just-gained face of one of the Lotus Lakes' squires).
        * It’s not in the night haunts’ nature to aid the dying but it is acceptable to wait with them, and to trade stories with them, or perhaps simply to give stories, as a parting mercy…
        * But this mercy is not parting. For three months, the Night Haunts take shifts perching on the few iron-free spots in this hole in the ground as they wait for Wei Wuxian to die, and as they let him coax them into telling stories from memories as old as Faerie. He needs something to focus on other than the pain—and the thirst and hunger, when he remember them. He does his best to pick shards of iron out of his skin, passes out and would die save for the power in his blood, and wakes up and picks out more iron. They call him "Liar's child" as he flirts with death, flirts with the Night Haunts, and they enjoy talking to someone living once more. 
        * Eventually, he gains enough strength to start crawling, climbing, falling; pushing himself up and crawling again towards the exit.* Eventually, he breaks into the open air again, rolls over on clean grass and turns his head sideways to spit a last (for now) mouthful of blood.
        * He keeps some of the iron scraps. He forges them into points for his new trident, the Wens having confiscated his old one. He introduces Wen Chao to it a couple months later.
      * _[fastforward out of the flashback!noises]_
    * “I caaan,” Nie Huaisang says reluctantly, tapping his fingers on his wine glass. “But it’s really hard and I’m not very good at directing them. And you just want to use it to help a _Wen_.” 
      * (Here’s a bit more history of Butchers’ Hill: Not long after his second wife passed away, the old duke was elfshot. The poison in it was slow-acting; only after several decades did he start to fail. This turned out to be a mistake on King Wen Ruohan’s part, because it meant Nie Mingjue had had time to grow in his own power and military experience. The Sunshot Campaign began not long thereafter) 
        * (There were arguments for Nie Mingjue to take the crown of Golden Sun, after the war, but it was Jin Guangshan’s changeling who killed Wen Ruohan, and the Daoine Sidhe are ever hungrier than the Tuatha de Danaan.)
    * “I’ll owe you one,” Wei Wuxian promises. “If you want, I can even shift your blood to one side or the other—I can’t imagine it’s comfortable, being half-plant, half-mammal.” 
      * (It’s an honest offer, not a threat. But also: Wen Zhuliu died in agony, at the hands of the Yiling Patriarch. Rebalancing the blood hurts more than anything in the world, except maybe 3 months of death by iron poisoning.) 
    * “I don’t think so,” Nie Huaisang says thoughtfully. “I mean, yes, it’s terrible sometimes, but…could I claim the favor for someone else, if they agree to it?”
    * “If you can get me on a road to Blind Michael’s realm and back, sure. You don’t need to worry about aiming me.” Wei Wuxian flips a compass out of his pocket. 
  * Once again: do I need to dwell on Blind Michael’s dark realm, night without the hope of moon or stars? There’s running, there’s chasing, there’s fighting…rather more fighting than Toby, actually. As established: Wei Wuxian isn’t popularly called a Hero (yet), but he is known for his bloody battlefields.
  * There’s negotiating. Blind Michael is predictably cruel; Wen Ning is sitting at the foot of his throne like a dog, though he hasn’t grown much more than fur and sharp teeth. So far. Wei Wuxian bargains one soul for another and presses compass and rose-wrapped candle into his friend’s already-less-pawlike hands. He whispers, “Think of your sister and follow it. Tell her we’re even. Don’t look back, accept any help you’re offered but don't ask for it, and you have…” He checks his watch. “About 2 hours.”
  * He watches Wen Ning go—for a moment. Until Blind Michael calls, “Take him,” and someone hits him very hard on the back of the head, and the empty sky swallows him up.




	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our soundtrack for this chapter is ["Tam Lin" by Steeleye Span](https://youtu.be/V_3ND1cibeo), because it's my favorite version.

  * So there’s fog, you know, soft and empty fog, except that sometimes there are people in it. There are songs, soft and sweet, except the song about the woman named Janet isn’t allowed at all—the song that– the song his…the song for which He beats him, when he sings, beats him and beats him until he can’t taste anything but blood. He swallows it and sings louder for spite—and feels terrible immediately, for disrespecting Him so terribly. 
  * Acacia comes for him, dresses him and scares off his attendants, and he remember…Wei Wuxian remembers a little… 
    * “Your daughter’s dead,” he says abruptly, as they pretend to have every right to walk the corridors. “Your lost Rhodia—but she had a son.”
    * “What?” says Acacia, hungry.
    * “He’s a bit of a brat,” Wei Wuxian says, in the contemplative way of someone still partly asleep. “But only because he’s loved and well-cared for, and knows it. Also because he’s a brat. He sent me here.”
    * Acacia pulls him along a little faster
  * But they don’t make it. Blind Michael’s more clever, more cruel lieutenants interrupt them, and then Blind Michael himself, and Wei Wuxian is dressed for a Ride and a wedding. Blind Michael becomes a god in his eyes, through his eyes—and they Ride
  * Oh, how they Ride.
  * With a thousand eyes and none his own, Wei Wuxian sees it: through the cold-capped mountains they Ride, horse-hides steaming in the clouds. Through the sea-wide lakes they Ride, over and under the waves. Through the stony hills they Ride, and all the beasts scatter in their wake. Through the golden streets they Ride, and human and faerie alike cower.
  * Until the Hunt reaches a lightly flooded crossroads at the mouth of a steep valley pass, and with a thousand eyes and none, Wei Wuxian watches a woman form from the water. She’s dressed like a pirate and stands like a queen; her skin is darkly scaled and her teeth are as sharp as a shark’s. 
    * “ _With the holy water in her hand,_ ” she shouts with a captain’s voice, “ _she cast the compass round. At twelve o'clock the fairy court, came riding o'er the mound._ ” And, “Michael, this is ending.” 
      * Hands pull Wei Wuxian down from his horse in the confusion, drag him forward and pin him in a vicious headlock just above water just deep enough to drown. He struggles to return to his lord and he goes limp and hopes the familiar arms will push him further down, into the water facefirst.
      * He can’t quite see who’s holding him; the Huntfold gaze he’s part of is still focused on Blind Michael and His half-sister.
    * “Get out of my way, daughter of Titania,” the Lord of the Hunt sneers. “You have no right to be here, tonight.”
    * “Oh, am _I_ the one being a selfish, manipulative egomaniac?” Amphitrite calls back. “But fine.” She stamps her foot as a child in temper, as a woman drawing a line in the sand, and the air reeks of dark ocean and fresh kills. Deep currents ripple in the flooded intersection. She points toward the figure held her feet, one woman pinning his neck and another his legs. “That’s my descendent you’ve got there, by birth if not by blood, and I want him _back_. He was under my protection when you _took_ him, and he owes me a debt.” 
      * Several other Riders have been pulled down, too, now struggling and limp in the hands of unseen strangers.
    * “You have no _right!”_ Blind Michael snarls again (only a child in temper).
    * “Friends and family and companions of blood always have a right.” Amphitrite warns one last time, “You can still walk away, Michael. I don’t really want you to—I’m not Annie. But I’ll let you.”
    * “Who would come for him?” Blind Michael demands. 
      * “Lan Wangji, heir to the Duchy of Cloud Recesses,” a voice says from above him, as cool as though it was rude of Blind Michael to ask. “My claim precedes yours.”
      * “Wen Qing.” “Wen Ning.” They speak almost at the same time. Wen Qing somehow manages to sound exasperated through her steely determination; Wen Ning is only, rarely, confident in his. “He’s our idiot.” “He’s our friend.”
      * “Luo Qingyang, formerly of the Court of Golden Sun,” says the one holding down his legs, and for the first time, Wei Wuxian scrambles completely organically to remember. Wait, that’s not- _Mianmian?_ “Wei Wuxian saved my life, and those of many I love, and I don’t see why that debt should go unpaid.”
      * “Jiang Yanli,” declares the one with a firm arm around his neck, “Princess-consort of the Kingdom of Golden Sun and heir to the Duchy of Lotus Lakes. I’m bringing my _didi_ home.” 
        * She speaks with such furious intent that he almost expects to see Madam Yu when he looks up, a thousand eyes fading to just his own. But it’s his _shijie_ who smiles down at him, and tightens her headlock (Madam Yu would approve of that, at least).
    * Blind Michael raises his hand and change hurts (change always hurts) but Wei Wuxian was _made_ for it. He is sleek and long and made of nothing but muscle—and fang and poison, and desperation to escape the grip that suddenly slips on his neck. He is nothing but neck. He slides and twists and swipes his tail, and the grip tightens around his middle with a startled gasp. He twists and rears and lunges and _bites_ , sinks venom into blood and the grip goes slack— 
      * —and the best Daoine Sidhe bloodworking healer in a generation, in several generations, slaps Jiang Yanli’s back and grimaces, and Jiang Yanli grits her teeth and tightens her hold, and above and before them, Amphitrite chants, “ _They’ve shaped him in her arms, into an roaring snake. She’s held him fast and feared him not, to be her lovely mate._ ”
    * Another change: Wei Wuxian is a beast of dark fur and gnashing teeth, slashing claws sharp as a sword and twice as savage. He is the wildness of the Hunt itself. He swipes at his captor—he cannot be contained, he _will not_ be contained—he strikes her across the cheek; he writhes and snarls and— 
      * —a pale hand shoves a sachet into his face; a glimpse of ice-blue eyes and a strong hand shoves his head down into it, his nose, and orders, “Calm yourself.” He inhales to snarl and strike again and breathes in pure, alchemically enhanced catnip and…it’s kind of like being hit with a truck, if the truck was dreamy serenity but also raw LSD. He wants to escape the arms now locking more firmly around his neck, but he also wants to nuzzle up into Lan Zhan’s hand now scratching his head, and also never take his head out of this really _amazing_ -smelling bag…
      * “ _They’ve shaped him in her arms, to a wood black beast so wild. She’s held him fast and feared him not, the father of her child!_ “
    * A third; Wei Wuxian is heat, is pain, is light, screaming, ecstasy agony destruction life _fire_. (“ _They’ve shaped him in her arms again, fire burning bold!_ ”) He isn’t sure he even wants to go back to Blind Michael, but he can’t stop burning. (“ _She’s held him fast and feared him not, till he was iron cold!_ ”) Jiang Yanli cries out and Wen Ning grabs her arms to keep them steady, gasping in pain himself, and Luo Qingyang drags all three of them down into the water, which does very little but—
    * “— _They’ve shaped him in her arms at last, into a naked man,_ ” Amphitrite calls at the last. “ _She’s wrapped him in the green mantle, and knew that she had him won._ ” And at last it is true: Wei Wuxian sags, exhausted and bruised and not a little blood-soaked, his own and his sister’s and his friends’. 
      * He licks his lips absentmindedly, and realizes he’s naked when Lan Wangji looks away with a stiff expression. Luo Qingyang rolls her eyes and pulls a spare robe out of somewhere and throws it over him, and it catches Jiang Yanli as well, because she doesn't wait to hold him closer and cry-laugh against his shoulder. “A-Xian! Are you okay? We were so _worried!_ You’re not to do that again, do you hear me? _”_
      * “Ah, _shijie_ ,” Wei Wuxian gives a laugh right back, only a little fake. “I’m always okay! And you—” He’s about to say something about how magnificent she was, but a dash of his memory catches up and he actually does pull away from her a little, just enough to look up at her with proper horror. “Wait, _Princess-consort—_ no! _Shijie_ , you didn’t marry the peacock?!” 
        * (While around them other families reunite, and a few weep—not all held tight enough. While Blind Michael shouts and whines his protest and Amphitrite invites him to fight or fuck off.)
      * Jiang Yanli smiles tearfully. “I wanted to wait for you, we all did, but…” Her shrug encompasses everything from true love to royal politics. But her smile both widens and softens as her hand runs over her stomach. “I’m even pregnant already.”
      * Wei Wuxian almost smiles, before he sits up with a horrified start. “No—Janet’s first baby didn’t—Wen Qing! Wen Qing, is the baby okay?!”
      * His panic is infectious; Jiang Yanli’s eyes widen and Wen Qing drops to her knees and presses her hands to Jiang Yanli’s side, swipes a drop of blood from her cheek and tastes it, and all stop until she says, “The baby’s fine. You should rest, though. Both of you. _All_ of us.”
    * Blind Michael and his Hunt turn away in shame, ride away in defeat…all but one. Acacia lingers, golden. 
      * Two figures wade carefully through Amphitrite’s flooded crossroads to greet her, one head black and the other dark, dark red.
      * “Grandmother,” says Nie Huaisang, part curiosity and part awe.
      * Acadia reaches out without a thought. Her hand stops in the air above Amphitrite’s lapping waves (which wouldn’t last for much longer, not on land, but for now still fought back the touch of Blind Michael’s realm).
      * She smiles sadly as her hand drops. “You do look like her. I don’t suppose you’d like to come home with me?”
      * Nie Huaisang bites his lip with the longing of a faerie meeting (one of) his Firstborn for the first time. But he says decisively, “No thank you. It seems kind of terrible.” He hesitates. “Would you…like to come home with me?”
      * Acacia doesn’t laugh, though her smile twists like she might have, once. “Would you pull me through into my sisters waters yourself, child? Would you hold me tight and fear me not, and set me free?”
      * “If Huaisang cannot, I’d be happy to, Lady,” says Nie Mingjue, every maiden’s picture of a strapping young duke. “My brother’s family is mine, by definition, and Lady Rhodia is much-loved by all of Butcher’s Hill, whether or not she still dances with us.”
      * “I’m glad,” she tells him, after a pause the length of a flower petal’s breadth, and turns her gaze back to Nie Huaisang. “But, no. Live well, grandson. If you ever take your bloody hero’s Choice—” her gaze flicks over his shoulder to Wei Wuxian, and back—“I hope you choose your mother. You have her wits as well as her face.”
      * And she turns and rides away without another word.
    * \And for a brief while, it’s over.




	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun title fact: In deference to "an artificial night" being from Romeo and Juliet, I chose a quote from later in the play - from, specifically, the moment where Tybalt has just killed Mercutio and Romeo is about to kill Tybalt. In my estimation, this is where the tragedy starts to properly kick into gear, but all fates are not yet sealed for hte worst...much like Qiongqi Pass Round 1. :)

  * They go to Lotus Pier, of course. It’s close, it’s safe, there’s soup and shock blankets ready, and there are plenty here who couldn’t make the trip into the endorheic Undersea proper. Lotus Pier is a town in the mortal world, not the Summerlands, but its inhabitants are mostly fisherfolk and others who make their living on the lakes. They know better than to ask questions of strangers after sundown, especially on a night like All Hallows’ Eve.
  * Wei Wuxian sneaks away as soon as everyone stops fussing over him, which does take some time. He stops to look, however, out over the lake. He might even sit on the edge of a pier, dangling his bare feet in the nearly-winter water.
  * Jiang Cheng finds him, with accusation and resignation. “You’re leaving.” 
    * “Yeah.”
    * “You’re going _back_ , to fight Blind Michael.”
    * It almost feels good to hear it said aloud, in a sickening, cathartic way. “Yeah.”
    * Jiang Cheng’s voice could not be more full of scorn. “Why do you always need to play the hero?” 
      * _Because I was a lost and forgotten child, too, once, in much better circumstances, and someone found me and brought me home. Because he’s a monster, and needs to be stopped. Because if I don’t, I might miss him._
        * Because here’s one last story: once upon a time in Faerie, there was a race who could neutralize the magic of others. Who could tear spells to pieces and end a glamour with a touch. Unsurprisingly (though _not_ justly) they were feared and hated, hunted and killed. But it’s harder than one may think to completely exterminate a people—people are stubborn like that. Bits and pieces slipped through, cousins and merlins and even the occasional fullblood.
        * Until one day there was a born a changeling child with that particular, rare quirk of changelings where instead of weak with the power in their blood, they are strong, stronger than can be imagined or contained.
        * This boy’s parents were killed—for their blood and powers or simply because they were in someone’s way, or perhaps even by natural accidents and illness; history doesn’t say. He grew up on the streets, at first protected by the instinctive glamours of childhood, and then by his powers as they grew. Until rumors started to flicker around him and he was found by a great faerie lord, taken in and offered home and family in exchange for loyal service. 
        * This is, of course, the story of Wen Zhuliu, infamous knight of King Wen Ruohan of Golden Sun, who could tear the magic from a faerie’s blood with a single touch of skin to skin. Their pointed ears would stay, their colored hair, their hind’s legs or stony skin or whatnot. But never again would they spin an illusion, slip through shadows, shift from one form to another or borrow power from blood or a hundred other necessary marvels.
        * As such, this is also the story of how the heir– how the new duke of the Duchy of Lotus Lakes came to be lying unconscious on a mortal hilltop, undergoing experimental surgery from the best Daoine Sidhe bloodworking healer in a century, with the help and bloody donation of the only Docchas Sidhe anyone had seen since his mother stopped her dancing. Wei Wuxian didn’t know what he was doing, Wen Qing _hypothetically_ knew what she was doing, and neither of them would be able to recreate it, for several reasons. But at the start, they had one crippled Merrow and one ¾ Merrow, ¼ Docchas Side, and at the end, they had one Merrow exhausted and unconscious but restored to full magical health, and one….about 99% Docchas Sidhe, 1% of his father’s blood still clinging to the edges. 
          * (That saved him, later, when a Wen archer managed to clip him with elfshot. He still had something left to burn out.)
          * (He didn’t think to mourn it in the heat of battle, and barely did later—it turns out that chronic iron poisoning _is_ a thing, if you spend three months surrounded and pierced by it yet somehow survive. But it's not a thing that can be survived by any but the mostly bloodymindedly enduring race in Faerie. There was never any turning back.) 
    * “Because someone has to,” Wei Wuxian says, and gets to his feet, tucks them back into shoes. Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “Hey, can I borrow your knife?”
    * “My knife,” Jiang Cheng says almost blankly.
    * “Your knife.” 
      * the Duke of Lotus Lakes wears a knife at his hip, as well as a trident on his back and a ring with the power of a whipping electric eel on one finger. Unlike the others, it is neither heirloom nor pride of office. But it is finely wrought silver, hilt and blade alike, and it was given to him by his father for his tenth birthday.
    * “Here,” he snarls, draws it and just barely shoves it forward hilt- rather than point-first. “Bring it back or don’t come back yourself.” And he stalks away. 
  * Wei Wuxian learned a great deal from the Night Haunts, and from his own subsequent bloody adventures, and (no offense, Toby) he doesn’t have any mortal drag on his ability to stride into Faerie lands. He doesn’t need to consult any Firstborns to take the Blood Road that is his birthright.
  * Blind Michael is as tall as the sky and as seductive as an undertow and as cruel as nothing found in nature, because it takes a mind and will to be truly cruel. Wei Wuxian already sent his candle away (it got Wen Ning home, and that was what mattered), but he did leave his iron-tipped trident behind, kicked to one side of the great courtyard-throne room. 
    * It’s not a fair fight. On one side, an immortal, nigh-unkillable warrior, veteran of countless battles, trained by the most bloodthirsty race in Faerie and fueled by the fire of absolute certainty in his rightness. On the other, a bully who’s spent the last several centuries (millennia?) intimidating children.
    * …Seriously, it’s over pretty fast. Silver knife and iron trident slide in together and pierce the Firstborn's rotten heart; get fucked, Michael. Acacia’s land, now. 
  * I’d love to say “Wei Wuxian goes home”, but, well. That’s a messy question, isn’t it? He can’t stay for longer than a bit of blood-borrowed transformation will allow. And he's acquired all these Wens to look after...



  * _Epilogue, a few months later:_
    * Nie Huaisang, barging into Jin Guangyao’s office with Wei Wuxian in favor-owing tow, sing-song and utterly guileless because this is a Nie Huaisang who…knows guile, he certainly knows it, but only as a toy; he has never (yet) had to wield it as a weapon: " _San-ge_! I have the _best_ birthday present for you!"



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now of course the question is, once WWX hope chests JGY into his true ideal across-all-canons final form of a Daoine Sidhe, does Jiggy realize, _wow, Huaisang went out of his way to get me this whereas my piece-of-shit father couldn't be bothered to write the high king and ask for use of a hope chest even though i LITERALLY won him his crown. Maybe the real ~~treasure~~ politically advantageous earned respect was the friends I made along the way?_ Then he proceeds to knife JGS like a proper power-grabbing Daoine Sidhe; evict JZX and JYL to Lotus Lakes, or maybe to Sparks Amid Snow (fuck JZX the Shittier); and live happily ever after as king....OR do things go Wrong still and wwx wakes up ~15 years later because NHS, LWJ, and MXY between them - with WWX's own blood - managed to crack the elfshot cure? MXY, I think, being WWX's fetch...imagine NHS corralling a night haunt and asking it to drink this unconscious man's blood please, I need to know what he knew, it's for Vengeance...but i do also like the Everybody Lives option.


End file.
